The mayor of San Francisco has vowed to crack down on crime terrorizing poor neighborhoods, promising extra funding and more power for police while urging prosecutors not to let criminals get away with just a slap on the wrist.
Responding to recent high-profile cases of robberies and break-ins in the city that have “become far too normal and cannot continue to be tolerated,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed vowed to “take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement” and “less tolerant of all the bull… that has destroyed our city” moving forward.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Breed announced that the city would seek to return surveillance powers to law enforcement that were removed in 2019. She also said “emergency police funding” would be secured to tackle long-standing issues, especially in the Tenderloin neighborhood, notorious for its problems with homelessness, drugs, and high crime rates.
“It’s time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city to come to an end,” the mayor said.
Breed noted that although swift police action is crucial for stopping the crime wave, the resources would be wasted if prosecutors and courts don’t get “on board” as well.
Our residents should not see the same criminals back on the streets of the Tenderloin again and again, in an endless cycle of fear and frustration
Though Breed acknowledged that San Francisco prides itself on being a city of “second chances” and “rehabilitation,” the mayor said such compassion “should not be mistaken for weakness or indifference.”
“What I’m proposing today and what I will be proposing in the future will make a lot of people uncomfortable, and I don’t care. At the end of the day, the safety of the people of San Francisco is the most important thing to me,” Breed said.
Speaking about Tenderloin in particular, Breed said she had listened to “heartbreaking” stories from families who live in the neighborhood and that serious action would be necessary to address Tenderloin’s “nasty streets” – which she claimed were “full of feces and urine that the Department of Public Works is cleaning every single day, but it comes back just a few hours later.”
Breed has denied that her proposal to increase police funding runs contrary to her previous statements. Just last year, she rallied behind the so-called “Dream Keeper Initiative,” which would have divested $120 million from the law enforcement budget, putting the money towards the city’s black community.
“I would say that things have changed as it related to our significant need for law enforcement, and so an investment is necessary as a result,” Breed said on Tuesday.